Fighting Back
by A Traveler
Summary: A dangerous encounter on the waterfront at night plunges Michael back into the dangers of his own mind. Can he conquer them? A Michael/Sara romance; complete.


Sara smiled to herself as she walked along the wharf street, hands in her pockets and hoodie covering her face. She couldn't wait to see the look on Michael's face that night when she presented the Fox River gang with a home-cooked vegetable lasagna dinner. She just had one more ingredient to find. Agent Self was not very imaginative with the menus he sent over for them to cook and eat. Up until this leg of their saga, they'd mostly eaten fast food, and only when they'd been lucky enough to have time to eat. But now it was different. They were a gang of fugitives who were supposed to be locked up. Going out to eat wasn't an option. So the team had slowly learned to fix a few basics. Tonight would be deliciously different and Sara couldn't wait.

Her cell phone rang and she smiled. These days, it was always Michael.

"Yup?"

"Hey, beautiful. Where are you?"

"I'll be back in 30 minutes. I'm headed to the grocery store down by the bait shop to get something I need for the dinner tonight."

"Yum, the bait shop. What are you cooking us again?"

"I'm not going to the bait shop, just to the grocery next to the bait shop. And I'm not cooking everything. You do remember you're making the salad?"

"Right. Hey Sara, keep your eyes open, okay?"

"I always do."

"Yeah, but there's reason to be extra careful. Mahone thought he saw Wyatt nosing around the wharf earlier. He's out looking for him."

"Wyatt? Oh, no."

"Sucre's gone to find him so Alex doesn't do something we'll all regret. Just-- promise me you'll be home soon."

"Promise."

"Okay then. Love you."

"I love you, too. See you soon."

Sara snapped shut her cell phone and dropped it back into her bag with an irrepressible smile plastered across her lips. Michael just did something to her insides every time she talked to him. One conversation with him and her feet felt like they weren't touching the ground.

She found the fresh herbs she was looking for without any trouble and was almost back to the safety of the warehouse when she saw him about a block away, standing under a streetlight. If he remained where he was, there was no way she could get past him without being seen and thus giving away their location. So far they'd managed to keep their hideout a secret from Wyatt.

The evening was fast approaching and she could only hope he hadn't yet seen her in the encroaching darkness. Stepping back into the shadow of a building, she grabbed her cell phone out of her bag and speed-dialed Michael.

"Hey, Sara. You back yet?"

"Michael," she whispered. "I see Wyatt."

"Where?" Michael hissed. Sara felt tears sting her eyelids. With the uttering of one word, his voice changed from relaxed and happy to anxious and urgent.

"I'm two blocks north. On Gateway and Ocean. And he's one block north."

"Sara, stay where you are. We're on the way to get you. Don't hang up, okay?"

"Okay."

"You don't have to talk. Just—just stay on the line."

Sara closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep, shuddering breath. She needed to stay calm, focused, and ready for anything. Here we go again, she thought. She numbly wondered how much she could take before her lifetime stress counter went through the roof and she self-destructed, one way or another.

"Sara, we're moving in, but we don't see him yet. Do you still have a visual?" Michael's wonderfully familiar voice rang in her ears and she realized her eyes had been closed longer than they should have been, considering she was supposed to be watching Wyatt. How many minutes had she been standing in this storefront, oblivious? She looked towards the corner where she had last seen the assassin.

"No," she whispered in a panicked voice. "He's not there anymore."

"Hello, Sara," a voice snarled in her ear at almost the same time, sending tendrils of horror up her spine. She heard Michael calling for her even as the cell phone was torn from her hands and thrown into the street. She fought with all her inadequate strength but to no avail. Wyatt easily dragged her from the street into the alley behind.

"Michael! Lincoln!" Sara managed to cry out before Wyatt hit her in the throat, causing her to gag and cough uncontrollably.

"Shut up or you'll get yourself killed before your time."

"Over there!" Michael pointed in the direction of the cry. Lincoln and Mahone came running.

Michael and Lincoln ran down the alley ahead of Mahone, running as fast as they could push their aching bodies, willing themselves to catch the assassin—the assassin who now had Sara and would surely kill her if he got away.

A privacy fence blocked the alley further up. Michael hoped desperately it would slow the man down, especially with his hostage in tow. Michael forced his legs to run faster as he watched Wyatt scale the fence ahead of him while dragging Sara along. It seemed an almost inhuman feat for a man, and yet he tossed Sara up and over the fence like she was a rag doll. On the other side, she'd been on her feet in a second, trying to outrun her captor, but he'd caught her easily, grabbing her by the hair and pulling her to his side. She screamed and Michael felt her pain shoot through him.

When he got to the fence a moment afterwards, he found superhuman strength of his own as he quickly climbed and jumped. He hit the ground and was running again before Lincoln could begin to climb.

"Michael, I'm right behind you!" Lincoln encouraged. With a mighty roar he heaved himself over the top. A ragged spur of metal caught him along the shoulder blade on the way down. Lincoln yelped in pain but pushed onwards.

"Lincoln?" Michael called over his shoulder. He half-turned back to see what had happened to his brother, but out of the corner of his eye he saw Wyatt spinning around to face him. The assassin raised his gun with one hand, the other still firmly pinning Sara's arms.

"Michael, watch out!" she screamed hoarsely. Wyatt's face exploded in ugly rage. For a moment his concentration broke; a critical mistake on his part. He used the butt of the gun to come down hard on the side of Sara's head. She struggled against his hold trying to evade the blow and in her flailing knocked the gun sideways. It went off in a deafening explosion. All Michael saw was a haze of smoke masking her face. She collapsed beneath Wyatt in a crumpled heap and lay unmoving.

"NO!"

Michael didn't waste a second of Wyatt's broken concentration. By the time Wyatt had his gun once again aimed in Michael's direction, his intended target was upon him. The two struggled for a few seconds but the larger Wyatt wrestled Michael to the ground, although with great difficulty. He tried several times to raise the gun to Michael's head but each time was thwarted by Michael regaining control for a split second and almost succeeding in shaking him off. When Lincoln caught up, he threw himself onto Wyatt's back. With the two brothers now working together, Wyatt was soon overpowered.

Lincoln held the man's neck in a choke hold while Michael restrained his arms and legs, but neither could quite manage to get the gun out of Wyatt's grasp. Just as Michael was beginning to wonder how long his strength could hold, Mahone came on the scene.

Before either Lincoln or Michael could blink, Mahone wrenched the gun from Wyatt's hand and pointed it at his face. The brothers released their hold and stepped back, watching Alex with wide eyes.

"You animal," Mahone spit. His face was a mask of purple rage, uncontrolled hate and insane grief.

"Alex," Lincoln cautioned. "We need answers from him."

"No, we don't," Mahone choked out.

"Alex, don't do this," Lincoln urged.

"Wait," Wyatt protested. "They're right; you need me." He was visibly afraid, and rightly so.

Tears ran down Mahone's cheeks in dirty streams.

"You killed my son."

He pulled the trigger.

After the echo of the single shot died away, there was silence. Only then, as he stared numbly at Wyatt's body, did Lincoln remember Sara. He spun around to where she had fallen.

Michael was already with Sara, pulling her into a sitting position. He was a wreck. Brothers are familiar with each other's tears. But Lincoln hadn't seen Michael so undone since childhood. He sat in the dirt with Sara curled into his arms so that their faces were hidden. Michael's body shook with sobs. Sara's hands moved up his back and held him by the shoulders with white knuckles. It was at that moment Lincoln realized she was alive.

"Sara, are you okay?" Lincoln cried out as he sank to his knees in the dirt. Her face, dirty but unhurt, lifted from the curve of Michael's embrace. Lincoln stared at her, incredulous.

"My head hurts. I think I got knocked out."

"Is Michael okay?"

"He will be," Sara answered, looking down at Michael's heaving shoulders. She ran a gentle hand over his close-cut head nestled in her neck. "He thought I was dead," she explained.

"Yeah, well, so did I," Lincoln agreed. "It sure looked like the gun went off in your face." His voice shook with rare emotion. Moving close, Lincoln reached out for Sara and Michael and hugged them from behind.

"I thought you were dead, too," Alex whispered. The monster that had possessed him only moments ago was gone. He looked small, tired, and vulnerable as he slid to the ground and leaned against the brick wall of the alleyway.

"I'm really glad you're okay, Sara," he added with the tiniest whisper of a smile before he closed his eyes and leaned back.

For several minutes, the four allowed themselves the luxury of reacting to the moment. It was a strange feeling of communion for four people who had been thrown together by bizarre twists of fate and evil. They had started out as strangers, estranged family, even mortal enemies, but then somehow grown into a fellowship so close that any one of them would give their lives for any other without hesitation.

"Michael, it's okay," Sara whispered to the man she still held cradled against her.

"Everything's okay now." His answer was an incoherent sob as he pulled her closer.

"We need to get out of here," Lincoln urged. He stood and stretched. A groan of pain escaped him before he began casing the alleyway. Blood darkened his left shoulder and a swelling on his cheekbone held the promise of a colorful shiner.

"I hope I don't look like you," Alex commented through teeth clenched in pain.

"You look worse," Lincoln returned. "Come on, it looks like we're still clear. Get up." He extended a hand to Alex and pulled him to his feet.

"Sara? Michael?" Lincoln asked gently. The two slowly rose to their feet with Michael's arms still locked around his precious Sara.

"Michael, we have to go," she urged. He lurched and she caught him, barely managing to keep him upright.

She gave Lincoln a pleading look.

"I can't get him to talk to me, Lincoln. Is he okay?" The older brother walked over and placed his arms around Michael's shoulders. He gave him a firm clap on the right shoulder.

"Michael, we need to get Sara back to the warehouse. It's not safe out here. Let's go, bro."

"Linc," Michael finally responded. He raised his eyes and Lincoln was struck by the wild grief he saw there. Lincoln moved to his brother's side and held him up. He grabbed Michael by the chin with one hand and forced him to look right at his eyes as he spoke.

"Wyatt's dead, Michael. And Sara's fine. It's going to be okay."

Michael remained quiet except for ragged breathing as he limped back towards the warehouse, leaning on Lincoln for every step. Sara held him up on the other side, and her hand lay across both Michael's and Lincoln's shoulders in a protective grasp.

"Is it?" Michael asked after so many minutes that neither were quite sure what he meant.

Sara would have been disappointed with dinner that night if she hadn't been so very grateful just be back in the safety of their hideout, surrounded by those she counted as family now. A box of macaroni and cheese, baked beans and wheat crackers were all they'd had the energy to pull together before dragging themselves off to bed. Maybe she'd make the lasagna tomorrow. Now Sara lay in her cot on the boat that Michael had made sure was assigned as her quarters. She closed her eyes but scenes from earlier replayed themselves behind her eyelids. She gritted her teeth and tried to count sheep.

The phone next to her buzzed. She smiled.

"Yup?"

"Watcha doing?"

"Just trying to fall asleep. You?"

"Yeah, me too. I—can't stop thinking about today, Sara." He sounded awful.

"Come talk to me, Michael."

"I'm on my way."

He must have been right outside. She heard him on the stairs and then he appeared in front of her. She squeezed up against the side of the cot and patted the thin length of mattress beside her.

"Here you go." He snuggled into her immediately with a shaky sigh.

"Tell me what happened to you out there today," Sara prompted. She pulled up his chin and made him look at her.

"You can't hide from me," she chastised.

"I don't want to hide from you."

"Talk to me."

"Sara… do you remember that night back in Fox River when you found me in Ad Seg?"

"Sure," she answered, confused. "Wasn't that all part of your plan to get out?"

"Most of it was. But the breakdown I had that night—it was real. When I was a kid, I had a hard time learning to control what came into my brain. It would make me nuts. Sometimes I thought I really was going crazy. It's called—"

"It's called Low-Latent Inhibition," Sara interjected. Michael gave her a surprised stare.

"I'm a doctor, remember?"

"Oh, right. Well, this condition, this LLI, was impossible for me to handle for a long time. I eventually figured it out. And I got counseling. But I'm always consciously keeping a lid on it. It's a constant battle. That night in Ad Seg, all I had to do was let go of that control and…"

"You snapped?" Sara whispered.

"I guess."

"What do you remember about that night?"

"Not much. I remember you. You told me everything was going to be okay." Michael bit back a sob and closed his eyes for a few seconds.

"You punched a wall. You bruised bones in your hand. I didn't know how to help you; I felt so useless as your doctor."

"But you helped me. You did." He curled a lock of her hair around his finger and watched her with a hope and a confidence that told her how much he believed in her.

"Michael, why are you telling me all this?"

"Because today, when I thought you'd been shot, it happened again. I lost myself."

He began to cry and Sara stroked his head, his arms, his back.

"I'm not sure how I got back, but I did. But I'm afraid, Sara. I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this. You have to help me figure this out again. Help me hold on." Sara stroked his cheek and ran her hand up into his soft hair.

"None of us know how much longer we can keep going like this. It's inhuman, Michael. You've been amazing. You have to tell me. Tell me what I can do when you feel it happening. Lincoln knows how to help you, doesn't he?"

"He says he doesn't. I think I scared him a lot when we were kids. But you're right; he got through to me today. He knows me." Michael was calm now. His eyes met hers and that familiar feeling thrilled through her.

"Stay here with me tonight, Michael," she whispered. "I don't know what you need from me. But whatever I have, whatever I can do, you already know it's yours. I love you."

"You've already given me all I need." The smile on his face bore testimony to his words. "Thank you."


End file.
